Bruce H.G. Calder's (daily@calder.net) November 13, 1998
THE-DAILY-INFO
-Facts, or so I'm told-
(Sorry if I've run this before...It's hard to keep track.)
- Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
- Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
- The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in
Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
- There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
- The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
- A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
- There are more chickens than people in the world.
- Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
- The longest one-syllable word in the English language is
"screeched."
- On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the
Parliament Building is an American flag.
- All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on
4:20.
- No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange,
silver or purple.
- "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters
"mt."
- All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln
Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
- Almonds are a member of the peach family.
- Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
- Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
- There are only four words in the English language which end
in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and
hazardous.
- A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
- An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
- Tigers have stripped skin, not just stripped fur.
- In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time
displayed on a watch is 10:10.
- Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture
dealer.
- The only real person to be a Pez head was Betsy Ross.
- When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at
home, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
- The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named
after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank
Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life."
- A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
- A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
- A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
- It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try
this @ home!) (ed. Actually you can, but it really really
hurts.)
- The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
- Who's that playing the piano on the "Mad About You" theme?
Paul Reiser himself.
- In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
- The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the
creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw
A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."
- The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a
radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
- Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
- John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
- The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
- There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
- "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand
* A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
* The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
* The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all:
"A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling
into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
* The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
* The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
* Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning
"containing arsenic."
* Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
* Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
* The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "the king is dead".
* Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
* Camel's milk does not curdle.
* In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
* An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
* Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
* The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
* Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan
* All porcupines float in water.
* Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
* If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
* The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses.
The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
* Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
* The airplane Buddy Holly died in was called "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
* The only nation whose name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.
* When opossums are playing 'possum', they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
* The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed
to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
* If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture
weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
* The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified.
* The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural. Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and
hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams.
* An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
* Ben and Jerry's sends the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff,
except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.
* Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
* Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean McBricker.
* Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
* The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in
Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life."
* The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with
anything wider than your thumb.
* The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
* Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.
* Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
* A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink." A group of frogs is
called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales
is called a pod. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A group of larks
is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament.
* Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
* The phrase "sleep tight" derives from the fact that early mattresses were filled with straw and held up with
rope stretched across the bedframe. A tight sleep was a comfortable sleep.
* "Three dog night" (attributed to Australian Aborigines) came about because on especially cold nights these
nomadic people needed three dogs (dingos, actually) to keep from freezing.
* Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His
first name was Willy. The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in
the first episode on their radio's newscast about the wreck.
* In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
* Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles
that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.
[It floats in gasoline, too.]
* Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of
surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to
realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
* Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself
* The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
* 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
* If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the
horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has
all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
* No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
* Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their
houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
* Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village."
* There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
-Facts you need-
. In the United States, with the mandatory federal sentencing
laws, there are people who spend more time in prison for
first offence, non violent marijuana crimes than rapists and
murderers.
. Almost as many people die of malaria every year as have died
of AIDS in the past 15 years.
. Dogs and cats, are either right of left handed.
. A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened
into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
. The average iceberg weighs 20,000,000 tons.
. No piece of square dry paper can be folded in half more than
7 times.
. One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
. The area of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland is slightly smaller than Oregon.
. The average life span of a major league baseball is 5 to 7
pitches.
. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
* The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the
original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles.
* Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the
mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
* Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away
from a toilet to avoid airborne particles from the flush.
* The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
* American car horns beep in the tone of F.
* Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
* You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
* Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
* The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
* A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight.
* American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from
each salad served in first-class.
* Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
* The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."
* Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
* The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties
of pickles the company once had.
* The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
* Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
* The first owner of the Marlboro company died of lung cancer.
* Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
* Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike
factory workers in Malaysia combined.
* Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was
talked out of it by her doctor.
* Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
* All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen
wearing them in public.
* The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in jelly.
* Pearls melt in vinegar.
* It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's
supply of footballs.
* Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are
already married.
* The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and
Budweiser, in that order.
* It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
* Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of
their hands.
* Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
* The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," uses every
letter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union to Test telex/two communications)
* Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them
looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
* Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
* Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.
* Actor Tommy Lee Jones and US vice-president Al Gore were freshman
roommates at Harvard.
* The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from
those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
* The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five
must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times
of war or other emergencies.
* There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
* All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20
* A pregnant gold fish is called a twit
* Rocks explode in microwaves
* Coca-Cola is better at cleaning your drain pipes than products like Draino
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